Lock chamber for protective enclosures

ABSTRACT

A lock chamber for protective enclosures closable by means of a protecting door. The lock chamber is formed by a collapsible shelter made of a flexible gas tight material. The lock chamber is at one side provided with an entrance opening corresponding in size to the opening of said protecting doors and at the opposite side with a vertical closable slit opening. The shelter is intended to be gas tightly fixed around the frame of said protecting door.

I United States Patent 1191 1111 3,824,934

Laakkonen 145] July 23, 1974 [5 LOCK CHAMBER FOR PROTECTIVE 2,910,99411/1959 Joy 52/2 ENCLOSURES 2,977,106 3/1961 Duff.... 52/2 X 3,500,5933/1970 Kwake 52/2 [75] Inventor: Launo Laakkonen, Helsinki, Finland A Tt 0 H F I d FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS Sslgnee em 6 sm m an 436,67711/1967 Switzerland 52/2 [22] Filed: Dec. 11, 1972 [21] Appl. No:314,238 Primary ExaminerDennis L. Taylor Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Young& Thompson [30] Foreign Application Priority Data 57] ABSTRACT Dec. 13,197] Finland 3545/7l 5 A lock chamber for protectlve enclosures closableby 52 US. Cl. 109/1 R, 49/58 means of a Protecting door- The lock.Chamber is 51 int. Cl. E05g 1/00, E06b 5/18 formed by a collapsibleShelter made of a flexible gas [58] Field of Search 49/58, 68; 109/1;52/2; tight material The lock Chamber is at one Side P 135/14 D, 1 Rvided with an entrance opening corresponding in size to the opening ofsaid protecting doors and at the op- 5 References Cited posite side witha vertical closable slit opening. The UNITED STATES PATENTS shelter isintended to be gas tightly fixed around the frame of said protectingdoor. 2,268,941 1/1942 Horstman 49/58 2,406,942 9/1946 Buttner 49/68 x 7Claims, 7 Drawing'Figures s 7 "Z I; 8 24,

I I Z 13 5c LOCK CHAMBER FOR PROTECTIVE ENCLOSURES The subject of thepresent invention is alock cham ber for protective enclosures and thelike for the formation of a cleaning space between the protecting doorand the protected space so as to prevent contaminations from coming intothe protected space.

According to the present practice, in air-raid shelters a lock room isconstructed between the protecting door and the protected space properso as to prevent the outdoor air containing dangerous materials andcontaminants adhering to people coming in from coming into the air-raidshelter when the protecting door is opened. The purpose of the lock roomis to allow a person coming from outdoors to clean himself and to removethe air that has come into the lock room out of same before the innerdoor to the protected space is opened.

The use of a particular lock room is, however, accompanied by severaldrawbacks. Cleansing a large lock room from contaminated air is atime-consuming operation. As a rule, in civilian use the lock roomrepresents a waste space, and moving through a steel door between thelock room and the protected space makes the moving under normalconditions more inconvenient.

A purpose of the present invention is to eliminate the above drawbacks,and this purpose is achieved by means of the lock chamber in accordancewith the invention, which chamber'is characterized in that it consistsof a collapsible shelter enclosing the said cleaning space and made of aflexible, gas-tight material, which shelter has on one side an openingat least of a size corresponding to the protecting door and being ableto be fastened at its edges onto the frame of the protecting door on theside of the protected space, and on the other side there is an entranceopening leading into the protected space and being able to be closed.

In accordance with'the invention, a light-weight, de-

tachable, and, when collapsed, storable, gas-tight shelter of a highlyadvantageous construction and use is provided. The shelter is made sothat is has preferably a triangular horizontal section, whereby one sideof the triangle acts as a door-size entrance opening directed at theprotecting door and the other side acts as an entrance opening directedtowards the protected space, which can be opened so as to make it adoor-sized opening and which is used as the entrance passage prior to asituation of danger, for stretchers etc. and as the air inlet openingand, during a situation of danger, as a slit-shaped entrance opening.The shelter is made so that it has the smallest possible volume,preferably corresponding to the cleansing operations of one person only,whereby the contaminated air that has come into this shelter can berapidly expelled and the shelter can be cleansed efficiently.

In civilian use the shelter in accordance with the invention representsan improvement in the respect that after the protecting door it is notnecessary to pass through an additional gas-tight door. The waste spacecaused by the lock room is also omitted.

According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the entranceopening consists of a slit extending substantially from the ceiling faceof the shelter to the floor face vertically whereby the top and thebottom end of the slit are connected to springs which tend to pull thesaid ends flexibly away from each other. The springs make it possible towiden the slit to such an extent that a person can pass through the sameand thereafter automatically close the slit by pulling the top end andthe bottom end of the slit upwards and downwards,

respectively, whereby the longitudinal sides of the slit.

FIG. 3 shows the fastening frames of the lock chamber as a front view,

FIG. 4 shows, on a larger scale, a side view of the tensioning springand the vertical support of the lock chamber,

FIG. 5 shows an enlarged cross-section view of the fastening frame,

FIG. 6 shows a part of the lock chamber in the storage position, and

FIG. 7 shows the same as a horizontal section.

In the drawings the wall construction 1 is shown that separates theprotected space 2 of the air-raid shelter or other protective enclosurefrom the outside space and in which a protecting door 3 with frame 4 hasbeen installed.

The lock chamber in accordance with the invention comprises a shelter 5which has been made of a flexible, gas-tight, firm material and thehorizontal section of which has the shape of an equilateral triangle(FIG. 1) and the vertical section of which is rectangular (FIG. 2). Theside of the shelter located towards the protecting door 3 is fully openand somewhat larger than the door opening of the protecting door so thatat one side of the door opening a free space remains for relief valves 6installed in the wall construction (FIG. 3). Under these circumstances,the shelter comprises two rectangular vertical side faces 50 and 5b andtriangular horizontal floor and ceiling faces 5c and 5d.

For the purpose of fastening the shelter around the door opening, a bodyframe 7 has been fastened to the wall construction. To the edges of theshelter side facing towards the door opening a fastening frame 8 ofequal shape has been fastened, which frame is fastened to the body frameby means of screws 9 through a gasket 10 (FIG. 5).

The vertical corner edge 52 of the shelter located opposite the dooropening is provided with a support rod 11 the top and bottom ends ofwhich are fitted with hooks for binding the support rod by means ofropes 12 to the fastening units sunk in the ceiling and floor of theprotected space. In this way the shelter can be stretched out.

One side face of the shelter is provided with a vertical slit 13 thatextends substantially from the top edge of the side face to the bottomface and that forms an en trance opening through which the air-raidshelter is entered and left during risk of contamination. The slit isprovided with a zipper 14. For automatic closing of the slit, the topand bottom ends of the slit are at positions 15 connected to spring arms16 inserted into corresponding fastening sockets 17 fastened to thesupport rod 11 (FIG. 4). The spring arms tend to pull the opposite endsof the slit apart from each other so that the edges of the slit arepressed against each other over the entire length of the slit.

The other side face of the shelter, b, is whole. The top and bottom endsof the vertical slit 13 are accompanied by horizontal slits 18 which arelikewise provided with zippers 19. The -shaped slit 13, 18 formed inthis way permits the opening of the entire side face so that an entranceopening is formed'through which it is possible to go or to take freshair when there is no risk of contamination, as well as, for example, tocarry stretchers.

Another important function of the -shaped slit is to permit the shelterbeing moved entirely to the side from the way of the door opening andbeing fastened to the frame 7, 8 by binding. When the ropes 12 aredetached and the zippers 19 opened, the shelter can be'moved against thewall construction. In this way the side face 5b of the shelter can befastened, together with its support rod 11, to the frame component onthe left side of the door opening (FIG. 3), the rectangular door flap ofthe other side face 50 of the shelter can be bound to the right framecomponent, the floor face 50 together with the bottom part of the sideface 5a can be bound to the bottom component of the frame, and theceiling face 5d together with the top part of side face 5a can be boundto the top component of the frame, It is to be noted that in this waythe door opening of the protecting door remains fully free. For bindingthe shelter, the frame 7,

' 8 and the shelter are provided with appropriate hooks 20 and loops 21(FIG. 6 and 7). If desired, the top and bottom sections and the rightpart of the shelter may be allowed to remain unbound.

The shelter with its support rod, springs and frames can be supplied asseparate components which can be easily assembled at the site by meansof simple equipment. For this purpose, the fastening frame 8 preferablyconsists of four separate components, which can be easily assembled atthe corners into appropriate recesses and by means of simple clamps.

The'drawing and the accompanying description are only intended toillustrate the idea of the invention. In its details the lock chamber inaccordance with the invention may vary widely within the patent claims.For example, the construction of the spring devices can be varied tosome extent.

I claim:

1. A lock chamber for a protective enclosure having a protecting doorsurrounded by a rectangular door frame, comprising a collapsibleshelterof flexible gastight material having a triangular floor and atriangular ceiling and two rectangular walls joined at top and bottom totwo sides of said triangular ceiling and floor, respectively, and openon one side, means for securing said enclosure to a said door frameabout said door on said one side of said enclosure, and means defining avertical slit in one of said two sides extending substantially from saidceiling to said floor.

2. A lock chamber as claimed in claim 1, and spring devices at the topand bottom of said chamber for yieldably vertically extending said slit.

3. A lock chamber as claimed in claim 2, and a vertical support rod inthe corner edge of said chamber opposite said open side thereof.

4. A lock chamber as claimed in claim 3, said spring devices beingmounted on the upper and lower ends of said rod.

5. A lock chamber as claimed in claim 1, and horizontal slits connectedat their ends to said vertical slit to define an entry flap for saidchamber.

6. A lock chamber as claimed in claim 5, and zippers closing said slits.

7. A lock chamber as claimed in claim 1, and a zipper closing said slit.

1. A lock chamber for a protective enclosure having a protecting doorsurrounded by a rectangular door frame, comprising a collapsible shelterof flexible gas-tight material having a triangular floor and atriangular ceiling and two rectangular walls joined at top and bottom totwo sides of said triangular ceiling and floor, respectively, and openon one side, means for securing said enclosure to a said door frameabout said door on said one side of said enclosure, and means defining avertical slit in one of said two sides extending substantially from saidceiling to said floor.
 2. A lock chamber as claimed in claim 1, andspring devices at the top and bottom of said chamber for yieldablyvertically extending said slit.
 3. A lock chamber as claimed in claim 2,and a vertical support rod in the corner edge of said chamber oppositesaid open side thereof.
 4. A lock chamber as claimed in claim 3, saidspring devices being mounted on the upper and lower ends of said rod. 5.A lock chamber as claimed in claim 1, and horizontal slits connected attheir ends to said vertical slit to define an entry flap for saidchamber.
 6. A lock chamber as claimed in claim 5, and zippers closingsaid slits.
 7. A lock chamber as claimed in claim 1, and a zipperclosing said slit.